Tim Hogan: Climate change -- 'Move past the niceties'

The headline news that 2012 was the hottest year on record for the United States should not be a surprise to those who live in Colorado. It was not only hot -- it was hotter by a lot!

A few other stories that didn't penetrate the headlines over the past week bear on this news. Research in Colorado and Utah (Nature, Jan. 2) documented elevated readings of methane leakage from gas fields near Denver and in the Uintah Basin -- levels significantly higher than the amount beyond which greenhouse benefits from the lower CO2 levels of gas are negated by the much more potent effects of methane.

Canadian researchers in the Alberta tar sands (PNAS, Jan. 7) reported increased levels of cancer-causing compounds in nearby lakes well beyond background readings, covering a wider area than previously believed, and belying industry claims these levels were "natural." And finally, Shell Oil, with the grounding of one of its drilling rigs in the Gulf of Alaska, experienced another blunder in its effort to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean (New York Times, Jan. 9); an effort plagued over the last year by equipment failures, mismanagement and bad weather. Oh, did I mention the unprecedented heat in Australia and the scores of fire sweeping across hundreds of square miles in the southeastern sector of the country?

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Meanwhile, citizens outraged by the expansion of gas fields into their communities are criticized for being rude in expressing their outrage in public. Those who protest the Keystone Pipeline as a lifeline to the tar-sands-horror-show have been decried by the prime minister of Canada as eco-terrorists. And wildland conservationists speaking out for biodiversity from the Arctic Ocean's polar bear seas to the undammed rivers of Patagonia are cast by hip, urban environmentalists (sic) as ecologically ignorant and politically naive.

Paraphrasing an Australian climatologist: Isn't it time we move past the niceties, start to confront the dire nature of what is unfoldin, and stop trying to not be "alarmists?"

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